Villagers: U.S. `brought us death'

Iraqis say Marines fired on civilians

ASH SHATRA, Iraq — A banner honoring an old man marks the day when Marines barreled through here, firing their weapons and leaving a trail of death.

"Ali Auwalid Aubaid: His spirit has gone to God by the hands of the enemy Americans," it reads.

The hand-scrawled poster near where the 80-year-old resident allegedly was hit by U.S. bullets has become a rallying point for thousands of poor Iraqi villagers.

Iraqis in six desert towns that have no working utilities and little contact with the outside world have compiled a detailed account of what they say are more than 200 local people killed or wounded at the hands of Marines.

Most victims, the Iraqis insist, were non-threatening people killed in a 36-hour span in late March along a 60-mile stretch of two-lane blacktop traveled by two Marine contingents headed north toward Baghdad.

If accurate, the Iraqi compilation appears to be one of the darkest episodes in the war.

The U.S. Central Command in Qatar says that while it regrets every civilian death, troops were sometimes battling a disguised enemy. Iraqi fighters dressed in street clothes, rode in cars and buses, and hid among civilians.

"During the wartime situation there was some collateral damage," said Navy Lt. Herb Josey, a military spokesman in Qatar. "But major efforts were made to avoid civilian casualties or damage to civilian property. There were many situations where we faced hostile situations with people in civilian clothes."

There was armed opposition on the road to the regional capital of Al Kut, according to media reports. The Marines called in helicopter reinforcements during a three-hour battle in the fields around the village after they were ambushed, the accounts said.

Marine commanders acknowledged civilian deaths at the time but said they had no way to distinguish between fighters and bystanders. Reporters on the scene counted more than 25 bodies in civilian clothes after a Hellfire missile reportedly hit vehicles outside Ash Shatra.

The military has no idea about the number of civilian losses in Iraq, Josey said and has referred the Iraqi claims from this village to Marine regional headquarters in Kuwait. International human-rights experts arrived in the region recently to investigate.

The Iraqis' list of the dead includes three women who witnesses said were waving to the Americans in welcome and two boys who Iraqis say Marines mistakenly thought were wearing guerrilla garb. Two busloads of passengers returning from Baghdad who Iraqis say were non-combatants were hit.

Victim sought `happiness'

"We thought the Americans had come to bring us happiness," said Raheen-Taher Agrash, who says he was shot four times by Americans while trying to rescue his father-in-law, Aubaid. "Instead they brought us death."

Throughout Iraq, there are no accurate figures of civilian losses. Nearly 2,000 Iraqi non-combatants may have died in Baghdad alone, according to preliminary media surveys.

Given the sparsely populated area around this village, the estimated number of deaths appears to be high, international monitors said. By comparison, about 100 Iraqis died in Kirkuk and Mosul--cities of 800,000 and 2 million people, according to aid agency estimates.

"If Americans could see what we saw, they would be ashamed," said Yahya Al-Attiya, an opponent of the previous Iraqi regime who is chronicling war deaths in Ash Shatra.

The Marine unit from Camp Pendleton, Calif., that rumbled through this village 120 miles south of Baghdad had just finished days of heavy fighting with Iraqi soldiers and Arab collaborators at the regional capital of Nasiriyah. The capital is where a ferocious fight erupted when enemy forces appeared to be surrendering and then opened fire on the Marines, killing at least nine.

The Marines appeared jittery from days of combat, Iraqi witnesses said. They fired on almost everything that moved along the road with artillery, machine guns and rifles, said a few dozen residents, religious leaders and doctors in several villages.

When Marines paused on the southern edge of Ash Shatra on March 25, residents recalled seeing aerial reconnaissance. Baath Party members and Iraqi soldiers fled, Al-Attiya said. He said he risked his life approaching the Marines with a white flag.

"I told them the Iraqi soldiers were gone," he said. "I asked them if they had come to bring freedom, and they said, `Yes, we have to bring freedom.' I begged them then to be careful."

After daybreak, Marine units began moving north through the town, he said. Residents peering from their homes said anyone on the street was a target. Marines said they were shot at from buildings along the road and responded.

Galib Awad Jaffar, an engineer, said he watched from afar as three women dressed in traditional black Islamic garb waved to the troops and were gunned down. A boy with them died too, he said.